


Beetlejuice Returns

by levele3



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (TV 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Beetlejuice past, Beetlejuice returns, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Other, Relationship(s), Single Parents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4013497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levele3/pseuds/levele3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I will always come, when you call"<br/>It starts with a 600 year old promise, and ends with a 600 year old curse.<br/>For the last 30 years Betelgeuse has had a quiet existence watching over Lydia Deetz  and her now 16 year-old son, Hugo, But with dark forces awakening it might just be time for Betelgeuse to return.<br/>This story will alternate between Betelgeuse's past, how he came to be the ghost with the most, and the present day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prolouge: London, England 1367

**Author's Note:**

> Not an original title, I know, may come up with something better.  
> Character's belong to Tim Burton  
> I own nothing

The hooded figure glided from shadow to shadow, seamlessly avoiding the flame-lit lanterns. His long dark cloak clung to the void around him making him near invisible to the night watchmen. Rats and beetles scattered before him, his heeled boots mercilessly crushing and crunching any pests in his path. He rounded a narrow corner and pulled himself close to the contours of the brick wall behind him and stood dead still as one of the clueless watchmen made his rounds. When the coast was clear the man knocked silently at the little wooden door. Without a warning the door opened just wide enough for him to enter, a slender pale hand gripped his wrist pulling him into the still darkness of the room.

Her raven hair glistened in the dim fire light and her eyes looked bigger and darker then he knew they were. Her pale skin appeared to glow eerily in the dim firelight, giving her the appearance of one who has recently departed. She was beautiful and Betelgeuse who had never had anything to call his own loved her.

“Elizabeth, my love” he croaked in a rough voice, shaking loose grave-dirt from his cloak as he removed the hood. “Do you pull all strange men into your home?” he asks coly.

“Betel” she admonishes, “You know that is not true, my door only opens for you.” She smiled shyly but followed with a flirtatious wink.

“Come, sit by the fire” Elizabeth coaxes as Betelgeuse sheds his cloak and hangs it on a stand by the door. The cloak is made of rough wool dyed black and lined with ermine fur, producing a black and white striped effect. Not something Betelgeuse could have ever afforded to buy, it was given to him by an employer. The cloak had belonged to the son of a wealthy family; it was Betelgeuse’s good fortune to be given the cloak upon the death of the son. It would keep him warm though the long, cold winter.

The fire was down to embers when he entered, the dark heavy window coverings hiding its light from the watchmen, but now the blaze roared anew. Betelgeuse drew close to the warm light hoping to vanquish the chill the night air had given him. He shivered even as the beautiful Elizabeth draped her arms around him, linking her fingers across his chest as she pushed against his back. He sighed with contentment as she rested her head on his shoulder and lightly brushed her lips to his cheek.

“My love, why have you come so late, the watch, they might have caught you.” Elizabeth says, her voice filling with concern but a smile plays on her lips.

He met her wide, fearful eyes with a loving but stern look.

“They could never keep us apart,” he says, turning and bringing his arms around her in a tight embrace. The way she nudges her head against his chest is endearing and makes his heart flutter.

Whenever she asks for his presence he comes to her, at all hours. An urchin had delivered to him a note mere hours ago telling him the exact time to be at Elizabeth’s door. Betelgeuse was not a hard man to find, he had recently found steady work as a grave digger, after all people were always dying.

Betelgeuse didn’t belong to any guild, or trade he was in what later years were known as a Jack. He wasn’t particularly good at anyone thing but passable at many.

Pulling Elizabeth just a little bit closer, Betel said fondly, “I will always come, when you call.”


	2. Present Day: Upstate Suburban New York, October 2015

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it's been a while since I've updated this one but I've still been working on it. Hope you enjoy.

Like everything else in her life, Lydia Deetz liked her tea black, although she sometimes added a shot of lemon juice. In her opinion there was nothing better on a cool fall morning than wrapping her hands around a warm mug of tea. Lydia was going through the motions of her usual morning routine completely unaware she was being watched. She cautiously sipped at her second cup of tea of the morning and sang along to an old tune that was stuck in her head while she packed a brown paper bag lunch.

 _“Day oh, me say day oh_ , ooh!” she exclaims glancing up at the old Felix the Cat clock and noticing the time.

“Hugo Alexander Deetz, you are going to be late for school,” Lydia bellows up the stairs.

It’s not long before Lydia’s prompting is followed by the opening and closing of an upstairs door and hurried steps down the stairs.

Lydia’s ever watchful presence snorts in disgust when the son of Frankenstein enters the kitchen.

Hugo Deetz was an average, soppy looking fifteen-year-old. His dark brown hair is thick but short and artfully ruffled with some well-placed gel. His milk-chocolate eyes scrutinize the world from behind arty lime-green square-framed glasses. His t-shirt is plain black with a faded red AC/DC logo that used to be his mother’s and black pants that are somehow tight yet baggy and they glint with ribbons of silver chain. He wore bracelets with spikes on them and more eyeliner than his mother; Betelgeuse doesn’t understand this new fashion.  

Hugo grabs a bright red apple off the table, subsequently taking a large crisp bite out of it.

“Morning mum” he says cheerily through a mouth full of apple.

“Get your butt in the car” Lydia says to him as he passes her in the tiny kitchen. She thrust a paper bag into his hands as she runs in the opposite direction to grab a coat.

Betelgeuse heaves an exaggerated sigh that disrupts Lydia’s pinned up hair but otherwise has no effect on anyone in the room. She hasn’t changed much in thirty years, he thinks but then he remembers the scared fourteen year-old girl she was and sees the woman she’s become there is no comparison. Twelve years, he had missed twelve years of Earth time sitting in the waiting room of purgatory. Juno had purposefully neglected him. He had thought that was punishment enough, that after twelve years some judgemental higher up would simply condemn him to the lost soul’s room and that would be the end of the ghost with the most. However his real punishment was nothing compared to the waiting room and he longed for those days of freedom back.

Despite the rough start Lydia has done well for herself, he thinks, she is a professional photographer who specializes in Gothic themed weddings and drives the hearse for the R.L Stine Funeral Home, a local family run business. Lydia was by no means Goth, she didn’t wear near enough make-up, and her wardrobe consisted of things other than black. Today for instance she was wearing a new dark violet cowl-neck sweater dress and black leggings, looking very stylish for a 41 year-old single mother, and her hair was pulled up high in a butterfly clip that looked like a bat. Betelgeuse had once described her as Edgar Allan Poe’s daughter, and that opinion of her had not changed. Betelgeuse never met the brat’s father, he arrived too late for that, Victor Prince having died two years previously in a car accident. All he knew was that Lydia had never been married and had never dated anyone since, much to Hugo’s annoyance who often tried to get his mother to go out with the neighbour across the street or his French teacher.

Lydia and Hugo have already left the house and for a few moments Betelgeuse is alone, but it won’t last long. This is part of his punishment, to be Lydia Deetz personal guardian ghost, all because of a technicality. Just as the Maitland’s were attached to their home Betelgeuse was now similarly bound to Lydia. Something to do with the fact they were: _“mutually bound by the agreement to enter into matrimony,”_ or some such jargon. Betelgeuse had read and re-read that line a million times before Juno simply said, “It means you are engaged.” The high school was just far enough away that Betelgeuse would inevitably feel the now familiar pull long before Lydia reached the destination. He had never thought actually being saddled with a living human would be so tedious.

He was bothering Hugo’s pet spider, Ginger, when there was a tugging sensation in his lower abdomen somewhere in the proximity of his navel. It was as though someone had thrown a lasso around his middle and was now pulling. He was yanked from the Livingroom; _what an ironic name_ he thought as he was pulled along by the invisible ropes. He could see the hearse Lydia drove on a daily basis stopped at a stop light just ahead. He was pulled into the vehicle and had his forehead slammed against the inside of the windshield for his trouble. He groaned as he rubbed the fresh lump and neither of the other two occupants batted an eye. Everyday he tested the strength of the spell that bound him to Lydia and everyday he paid the price.

“Mom I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to try dating again and Monsieur LaLean seems to really like you, he keeps asking about you.” Hugo hinted.

Betelgeuse groaned again, not back to the French teacher, “That bag of bones” he huffed knowing it wouldn’t make a damn difference.

“Hugo” Lydia sighed, “I thought we talked about this, why is one parent not good enough for you? I mean would you really want me dating one of your teachers?”

“It’s not that I need a father figure mum, I’ve had plenty” Hugo tried to explain this feeling that kept creeping up in him. “I just want _you_ to be happy.”

“Honey, I _am_ happy. I have you and that’s _all_ I need.” Lydia smiled at her son seated next to her. They were very similar she thought, he studied hard, got good grades, and had a small close knit circle of friends. When she looked at him like this though she saw Victor. He had Victor’s hair and eyes, but he also had her nose and chin.

In short order they pulled up to the curb outside the high school and Hugo was gathering his lunch bag and text books.

“Don’t forget” Lydia called out the open window as Betelgeuse slunk into the recently vacated seat “Aunt Bertha and Aunt Prudence are coming to visit today, so come right home after school.”

“Okay mom, will do!” he called back to her giving a quick wave as he ran up to his waiting friends Henry Stevenson and Dorian Wilde. They were dressed similarly to Hugo in various shades of black on black with silver and black accents.

“Oh no” Betelgeuse moaned “not Burp and Prude.”

The first time Hugo’s “aunties” had shown up Betelgeuse had been beside himself with glee. They had been Lydia’s school friends from Winter River and would have been too perfect for a good scare if only he had the juice. It was a sad day when Betelgeuse realised his ghostly powers were at their most minimum.

He had been banned from preforming exorcisms, corporal possessions of living or inanimate objects, making contact with other spirits, trying to contract the living, and a whole host of other things. Sometimes other ghost felt his presence, knew something lurked in the dark, but they couldn’t see him or call him out. He could not be seen or heard by ghosts, mediums, sensitives, or regular humans. The only exception to this rule had been Hugo who did not seem to possess his mother’s gift but as a baby had been able to see Betelgeuse none the less.

He _could do_ non-corporal possessions of inanimate objects, but he couldn’t control them in any matter, only inhabit them. Such as making the bathroom pipes groan and bang when he got stuck in the U-bend. Lydia had some of Delia’s more progressive art pieces in her home and Betelgeuse was particularly drawn to them. However there was no turning the stairs railing into a snake, no forcing the television to project his image, hell he couldn’t even get the faucet to leak, and he was king of the drips.

Lydia still saw ghost all the time, in fact they seemed to be drawn to her, and often asked her for advice. She couldn’t see him though because she wasn’t supposed to know he was there. Sometimes though he’d knock into something by accident when they were home alone and she’d look around for the cause. It was a touchy process Betelgeuse never knew when an item would treat him as solid or if he would merely pass through it. He had been delighted the day he realised the then two year-old Hugo could see him, was watching him in fact. After so long of being invisible it had made Betelgeuse feel alive.

He was wrecked when he realized it was only the brat that could see him but as Hugo became more active so did Betelgeuse. Lydia had thought “B.J” had been Hugo’s imaginary friend and in many ways he had been. Betelgeuse had taken on the guise of a small boy roughly the same age as Hugo, the one thing they couldn’t take from him his natural ability to change his age and outfits. Lydia had encouraged their time spent together and as a result hours were devoted to playing sports, reading books, watching scary movies, and playing Mario on Nintendo ES. It all ended quite suddenly sometime after Hugo’s eighth birthday. If it hadn’t of been for B.J though, Hugo would have been a near friendless child. He often wondered what Lydia would think if she knew her son had been in part raised by a ghost.

“He’s grown up so fast” Lydia mourned, to whom she was speaking Betelgeuse wasn’t sure. “Oh Vic, I wish could see him.”

Ah, the father. Lydia often did this, talk aloud as if Victor could hear her. He was the one ghost she had never seen.

Lydia pulled the hearse back into the driveway and waved to the neighbour across the street. He was a big hairy Texan with a mean looking pooch whom Betelgeuse enjoyed pestering. Unlike humans animals were naturally more sensitive to his presence and innocent creatures such as Ginger and Poopsie were often the unwilling victims to his pranks.

Betelgeuse gave a malicious wave to Poopsie sending the dog into a barking fit.

“What in tar-hooties has gotten into you” the giant Texan asked his dog trying in vain to calm down the poor creature.

Lydia giggled at the strangeness of it all and Betelgeuse knew it was worth it just to see her smile that way. That was an odd notion in itself, it had been so long since he’d done something for someone else and not for his own personal gain.

Betelgeuse paused a moment outside the small America-Foursquare home he shared unknowing with Lydia and Hugo. It was all decorated for Halloween and with the hearse parked out front looked like a proper haunted house. Lydia already had pumpkins on the front porch, orange pumpkin lights bordered the windows and a mini graveyard had been erected in the front yard.

Halloween was a very important Holiday in the Deetz house, it wasn’t just Lydia’s favourite holiday it was also Hugo’s birthday. Every year when he was small Lydia and Hugo would get dressed up and go out, all the pictures proudly displayed on the fireplace mantel. Once for Halloween she had gone as Lenore and had dressed a five-year-old Hugo up as a raven, then they were Morticia and Pugsly Addams, and Mina Harker and Count Dracula. All Hallow’s Eve was an important date for Betelgeuse too but for reasons he’d rather not think about.


	3. London, England October 28th 1368

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Halloween is next week you get another chapter :)

A man of 22 Betelgeuse feels himself too young to die. Was it even worth it to survive the Black Plague for this, for what? To die alone in this forsaken gaol cell, with not but the rats and bugs for company. He shivers and shakes in the damp darkness that surrounds him and a pest stirs in the far corner of his cell. It puts Betelgeuse on alert; every sound in the endless silence comes like thunder. When nothing is all you hear all day, anything sounds too loud.

His stomach makes a noise; he doesn’t remember his last meal. He watches by the low light of the torch as a thick black beetle scurries towards him. With unseen agility he reaches out his arm and snatches up the bug in his palm before greedily popping it in his mouth. He tries to chew but the crunching noise echoes in his head so he swallows, the beetle is still alive he can feel it crawling inside him.

He’s been in gaol for just over a year, he only knows because _she_ tells him. Passage of time in the dark means nothing to him. In the year he’s been locked away his eyes have grown big to adapt to the low light and his hair has grown long and brittle with lack of subsequent nutrition. If he looked pale before he thinks he must now be the shade of midwinter snow. He has not seen his reflection since being locked away but knows if he were to gaze upon it, it would be unrecognizable.

“You are repulsive” a cold voice comes from the shadows.

He shudders as a woman dressed in a blood-red brocade gown weighted down with gold beading steps forward as if walking out of the brick wall. She wears a mantle of black and a matching veil still covers her face. He knows this woman she has been his only visitor in the past year, Cassandra sister of Elizabeth.

“You are not welcome here, _Witch_ ” Betelgeuse scorns, his voice rough with disuse and lack of drink. He spits.

As she steps forward she lifts her veil and the flame seems to grow in strength, stinging the corner of his eyes. She kneels down in the dirt on the other side of his iron bars soiling her gown but she seems not to notice. A mirthless smile plays on the woman’s lips and he knows she has come to gloat.

“They will hang you tomorrow” Cassandra said, emotionless and for the first time in over a year Betelgeuse felt a heavy weight lifted off his chest.

A slow menacing smile crept across his face and Cassandra twisted her lip in displeasure.

“Did you not hear me?” she asks raising her voice in anger, “this time tomorrow you will be dead.” She grips at his bars and to him it is she who looks like the prisoner, “why does this give you pleasure?” she demands.

“I will be dead” Betelgeuse said, still smiling and a long since vanished light rekindled in his yellowed eyes.

Cassandra gazed at him still uncomprehending.

“I will be dead” he repeated a soft glee entering his voice, “and reunited with Elizabeth, and you, you will be alive and alone.” He threw his head back and laughed like a mad man, the look in his eyes was pure malice and it finally made Cassandra get up from the damp ground and take a step back from his cell.

Anger flashed in her eyes, “You may _die_ tomorrow but I shall ensure you will _not_ rest in peace. You failed my sister and so I do curse thee Betelgeuse, your soul is mine and should anyone call upon you for assistance in the afterlife you _must_ provide it.” She threatened her voice tight with emotion.  

Betelgeuse scoffed at her words. This time tomorrow he would be dead and if there was something beyond the grave he would find Elizabeth there waiting for him.

~October 1367~

It had all started with a ring.

As payment for a job Betelgeuse had been given a ring, made of fine black iron and set with rubies. Never mind that the ring was worth more than he could calculate, or that it could easily buy a months’ worth of meat pies and ale, Betelgeuse knew there was only one place this ring belonged and that was on the finger of his beloved Elizabeth. Betelgeuse could have saved his earnings for a year and not have a fraction of what he would need to buy a ring of this quality. Elizabeth deserved a ring she was a decent woman and would make an honest man out of him yet.

Betelgeuse was five feet down on the grave he was digging when the sound of running caught his ear. Climbing up out of the grave Betelgeuse was met with a familiar freckled face boy, it was the same urchin Elizabeth always sent to him with her secret messages.

“What is it boy?” Betelgeuse asked impatient as the boy stood there trying to catch his breath.

“Mistress Elizabeth” the lad finally heaved out, “the Watch.”

Betelgeuse’s heart quickened at the mention of the night watch, if those lewd scoundrels had caught hold of Elizabeth there was no telling what they might do. In blind rage he threw down his shovel and took off running in the direction of Elizabeth’s house. There were very few places she could be this time of night. During the day she helped her father and sister run an apothecary, but sometimes at night she was called out to be a midwife, especially to those too poor to pay for such services.

A scream pierced the silence of the night and in his heart Betelgeuse knew it was Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth” he screamed out and ran in the direction of her shouting.

His cloak was flying out madly behind him as he dashed through the back streets and alleyways of the city he knew like the back of his hand.

“Betelgeuse!” it was a clear cry from somewhere nearby. Betelgeuse made a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end. If only she would call out again. He doubled back a few paces and headed off blindly in what he hoped was the right direction.

“Betel-ah!” Elizabeth’s cry for help was muffled this time but it led him to the right spot. When he saw them his vision went red.

Three large watchmen had _his_ Elizabeth surrounded, the largest one of all had his filthy hand covering her mouth and he was laughing gleefully as though someone had said something funny.

“So it is true gravedigger” he says spotting Betelgeuse, “you come when she calls, like a suckling pup.”

Betelgeuse made to step closer to Elizabeth when there was a flash of silver caught by the moonlight and he sees it pressed against his beloved’s throat.

“No, please, don’t hurt her” he begs, he needs time to come up with a plan. He is usually quick on his feet, finding unusual ways to get out of awkward situations but the Watch is the law. If it came down to their word against his they would win every time.

Tonight was going to be special, he had a ring, he was going to purpose. Elizabeth was frightened, he could tell but there was nothing he could say or do to ease her mind.

“I come when she calls me because I love her” he said defiantly in the face of the three brutes, “and she only calls for me because that love is returned.”

He can feel the other two closing in on him and he doesn’t hesitate in attacking when they are within his reach. He kicks out at them, fending them off but it’s not enough. A thick cloud covers the moon, the only light illuminating the alley, and descends them into darkness. Betelgeuse throws his voice a simple parlor trick he leaned and makes it sound as though he’s called from the other side of the alley.

It’s enough to confuse the two clueless lackeys and in the blind darkness they run into each other knocking themselves out. Moonlight fills the alley way again and the third guard is suddenly shaking in his boots. He still clutches Elizabeth in his grasp but Betelgeuse is nowhere to be seen and his two comrades are knocked out cold.

“Devil” calls out the night watchman, “fiend. What magick is this you possess to cause the moon to disappear at your will?”  

Betelgeuse is hidden in the shadows waiting for the right moment. One false move and Elizabeth’s throat might be cut. He shivers at the thought. He has no skill of magick, only luck, but tonight his luck has run out. Betelgeuse attacks the watchman, jumping on him from behind and it’s enough that Elizabeth starts to flee but she’s not fast enough. The watchman casts his arm out wildly and his knife hand catches her in the chest.

He lets loose with a vicious howl as Betelgeuse cries out in anguish. Roughly he pushes aside the watchman, knocking him to the ground as he runs to Elizabeth’s side. He cradles her head in his lap as he kneels on the cold ground. She looks up at him with wide fearful eyes, the cursed blade still protruding from her chest as it’s rising and falling begins to slow.

She’s trying to say something but he can’t hear her over the furious beating of his own heart.

“Be…Bet…use” she dies with his name on her lips and it breaks his heart in two, he’ll never love again. The only thing he had truly valued in this world is gone.

~~***~~

Betelgeuse let the memories wash over him and meets Cassandra’s cold hard stare with one of his own.

“Go to Hell Cassandra” he spat at her.

“You first” she chided, before melting into the shadows once more and leaving him to his misery for one last night.

It’s ironic but the last thing they made him do was to dig his own grave. Betelgeuse would be buried in an unmarked grave outside of consecrated ground. He dug with the manacles around his wrists, and three guards were set to watch him. They grimly joked about simply leaving him there but his hanging was going to be a public event and not even his heartless guards wanted to deprive the people of a good spectacle.

Betelgeuse was lead from his grave site to the square where a noose had been erected. The gallows man stood ready and waiting, Betelgeuse ascended the steps as a crier read out his charges. Murder of an innocent, and Witchcraft, both of which were lies but there was no judge to give him a fair trial, that it seemed would fall to none other than God.

“Any last words?” The crier asked him as the rope was slipped about his neck.

Betelgeuse appraised the crowd that had gathered old and young alike had come to see him hang. Some people looked smug, satisfied in the knowledge that another criminal would be gone, the children looked frightened. He would become a tale parents told to keep their children obedient. He searched for one face in particular and found Cassandra near the back of the crowd, face veiled. These people had come to see a show, and it was show time.

“Let the entertainment commence!” He shouted throwing his arms wide.

He remembers the scratchy feeling of the rough rope around his neck. He remembers the trapdoor falling out from beneath him, the feeling of being weightless, then the world fading away to black, and then nothing.

~~***~~

Betelgeuse wakes up in the fanciest parlour room he has ever seen. He wonders if the execution was stalled, perhaps he’s been brought to see the king. The room is full of divans many of which are occupied. A few of the faces seem familiar but Betelgeuse can’t say where he’s seen them before. A well-dressed footman waits by the only door in the room, occasionally he calls a name and someone goes over to him.

A young couple sits on the divan next to him, their clothes are dripping water no doubt ruining the fine upholstery. They look as though they were caught in a bad rainstorm. He doesn’t know what kind of place this is but surely they shouldn’t let in people who looked half-drowned.

“What happened to you?” he asks and it sounds much rudder than he meant.  

“Carriage accident” replied the man, somewhat sheepishly.

“We were just out for a ride along the river’s edge” the woman explains, “but then that black cat appeared and spooked the horses. Fell right into the Thames we did, carriage and all.”

That explains the smell Betelgeuse thinks as he tries to slowly edge away from the couple, but a drop like that could kill a person.


	4. Present Day: Lydia's House, October 2015

There is an almighty scream of horror and Betelgeuse is instantly transported from outside in the driveway to inside the kitchen. Unlike the proximity pull if Lydia is seemingly in life-threating danger he simply pops out of existence in one place and reappears at her side. The kitchen seems normal at first and Betelgeuse can’t imagine why Lydia had let loose such a blood curdling scream over nothing when he sees the problem. The kitchen floor is hidden under a good two inches of water. It’s not life-threating per se but it _is_ a mess. The broken pipe under the sink is still gushing water.  

“Oh sure, _now_ you leak stupid hunk of junk.” Betelgeuse said kicking out at the broken pipe.

Instead of connecting with the offending piece of PVC it treated him as invisible and Betelgeuse found himself flat on his back on the wet kitchen floor. His head smacks hard against the linoleum floor and the water rushes through him making him cold. It was days like this he sensed the old house laughing at him. Lydia is still in a state of shock as if she can’t believe this has happened to her. It was an older home, pipes break all the time, so what if this time it wasn’t Betelgeuse’s fault? 

“Hey I’ve got a bright idea” he says aloud and he feels his form shift and ends up turning himself into a lightbulb, “Call a plumber babes!”

Even though he knows she can’t hear him Lydia seems to snap out of her haze at his words. In slow motion she back pedals out of the kitchen and into the Livingroom grabbing her laptop on the way. Of all the new things in the world Betelgeuse doesn’t understand technology is the worst. He watches from over Lydia’s shoulder as she brings up information on the screen evidently it’s a list of local plumbers.

“Go with the first one, always go with the first one.” He hisses at her but she passes _A Plus Plumbing_ and moves further down the list. It restores his faith somewhat in their odd relationship. 

Lydia chooses a name from the list at random and picks up her phone to place the call.   

The plumber is both what Betelgeuse expects him to be and not what he expects. He is dressed in white painting overalls that cage in his beer gut, paired with a black train conductor’s hat. His hair is a greasy shoulder-length blonde mullet, and his eyes are an astonishingly bright blue. The man has dark circles around his eyes from lack of sleep and a history of drug use.

He is a man after Betelgeuse’s own heart, he may be clean now, but he is not on the straight and narrow as he would have his parole officer believe. Betelgeuse recognizes another conman when he sees one. This man will take longer than necessary to fix Lydia Deetz’s kitchen pipe, and charge her twice as much as he should. He has already conned her into letting him clean up the water too and has hinted she may need to have her linoleum floors replaced. 

His simple black and white business card reads ‘Mr. Beetleman Handy Man’ with the phone number and a finer line of text across the bottom states ‘ _Carpenter Plumber Electrician_.’ 

When Mr. Beetleman introduced himself Lydia merely scrunched her nose in distaste, but otherwise let him get to work.

Betelgeuse was sitting outside on the front porch with the plumber, in the midst having a smoke break, when Hugo arrives home from school. His two “aunts” are inside having tea with Lydia, Bertha and Prudence, or as Betelgeuse prefers _Burp_ and _Prude._ He can’t stand them.

Bertha has been married and divorced three times, has travelled the world, and written a series of successful novels. Prudence is the exact opposite, the farthest she has ever been from Winter River, Connecticut is where she sits now in Lydia’s northern New York suburban home, she has never been married, and after graduating from Miss Shannon’s School for Girls took up a teaching position there where she recently became Headmistress. 

“Hugo has been trying to get me dating again” Lydia confides to her oldest and dearest friends.

A dehumidifier hummed in the background in an attempt to suck up the remaining moisture. Lydia had already emptied it twice.

“Who was it this time, the neighbour or the French teacher?” Prue asks with mild enthusiasm, it’s become a game they play.

“The French teacher” Lydia sighed in defeat.

“Be careful Lydia, or he’ll try to set you up with the plumber next” Bertha said, snorting at her own joke. 

Lydia looks mildly horrified, and the three women turn as one to look out at the man currently taking the world’s longest smoke break. Lydia’s senses go on high alert as she notes with a feeling of dread Hugo is in an animated discussion with the overall clad man. 

He bursts through the door a giant smile plastered on his face, perfectly straight teeth, courtesy of two years of braces, blind his aunts in welcome.

“Aunt Prue” he says, already striding across the room, “congratulations on your promotion” he kissed her fondly on the cheek before edging around the table.

“Aunt Bertha, I loved your last book” he praised, brushing his lips to her cheek as well; “can we expect another one soon?”  

Hugo is polite and always asks just enough questions to come across as genuinely interested in his aunt’s lives. He knows these ladies are his mother’s versions of Henry and Dorian, friends since school they’ve been through everything together.  

“What were you talking to the plumber about dear?” Lydia asked, when Hugo finally made his way around to her.

“Oh, Mr. B? Nothing much, just asking him what he’s been up to. I used to see him all the time at school” Hugo said.

Hugo poured himself a cup of tea, and joined the ladies at the table, he took a chocolate-chip cookie on offer from a central plate and devoured it in three bites. 

“And what did he do at the school?” Lydia asked, trying not to sound interested, just polite.

“Oh you know, same thing he’s doing now” Hugo shrugs his narrow shoulders in mild disinterest. “They called him in whenever something needs fixing; he does a little bit of everything, a proper Jack of all trades.”   

“Have yourself a little girlfriend yet, Hugo?” Bertha asks, changing the subject abruptly.

“No” Hugo says with disinterest as he takes another cookie.  

Lydia tried leveling a look at her friend but Bertha isn’t taking the hint.   

“You’re too modest, I bet the girls just can’t get enough of you” Bertha egged on.  

“He’s only fifteen” Lydia defends; she can see how uncomfortable this topic makes her son. 

“He’ll be sixteen the end of the month” Prue interjected, stating the facts as usual.  

“What about a boyfriend then?” Bertha tried again, tactlessly she continues, “I hear kids are into that these days.”  

“I’m not really interested in-” Hugo was cut off as his mother and aunts all started talking at once and over each other.

“Which is completely fine by the way dear” Prudence said, with a nod of her head in Hugo’s direction.

“Bertha!” Lydia called out in admonishment. Of course it was fine if Hugo was gay, and it was also fine if he never wanted to date anyone.

“We wouldn’t love you any less” Prue said, ignoring Hugo’s distress at the topic of dating.  

“I think maybe we should drop this subject” Lydia said, the only one in the room acutely aware of how uncomfortable her son was, but she was drowned out by her friends.

Hugo felt invisible, his mom and aunts were talking about him as if he wasn’t sitting right there.  His chair made an awful screeching sound when he pushed it away from the table. His head bowed and his mop of brown hair partially obscured his face.

The chair silenced the room. The dehumidifier beeped that it is full.

“Please excuse me, mom, Aunt Bertha, Aunt Prue, I have homework to do.” He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as he slung his backpack over his shoulder and made a graceful exit out of the dining room and up the stairs. 

“What’s the matter with him?” Bertha asked, oblivious to the fact it was her nagging that made Hugo sulk off.   

Once again Lydia leveled a glare at her friend but it was missed as Bertha closed her eyes while taking a long sip of her now cold tea, her nose stuck proudly in the air.

Lydia scraped back her own chair and marched over to the dehumidifier to empty it once more.

~~***~~

Outside the Ghost with the Most is enjoying the company of the handyman. Jack Beetleman had just tossed his third cigarette butt over the veranda railing when a very irate Lydia Deetz stormed her way out the kitchen side door. With a loud splash she sends the contents of the dehumidifier cascading over the side of the railing.

She turned around suddenly and addresses the slack-jawed plumber.

“Excuse me, but are you going to actually do any more work today or do you just expect me to pay you to smoke on my porch” Lydia is absolutely vicious in her take down and Betelgeuse is momentarily awestruck.

Her foot taps impatiently against the peeling paint of the boards and the stern look she gives the plumber is all kinds of sexy.

“Woah! Babes!” Betelgeuse sighed appreciatively before letting loose a string of low and lewd wolf-whistles.   

 There was something about a woman who could cull a man with a single look. Betelgeuse took an odd pleasure in Lydia’s scathing glare, especially so since it wasn’t directed at him. The flash of malic in her dark eyes was at once becoming and familiar.  

Lydia turned on her heel and marched back in the house.

The plumber grunted and examined his almost empty cigarette package. Having come to some conclusion he made his way back into the house and under the kitchen sink.  

 Betelgeuse made obscene gestures towards the plumber. He then floated around the Livingroom a while listening to the woman talk before he made his way up the stairs.

Hugo’s bedroom door was opened the tiniest bit and Betelgeuse snuck his way in.  

Hugo sat on the edge of his bed talking to his pet spider, which he had named after the famous dancer Ginger Rogers.  

“Isn’t it ironic Ginge that I want mom to date someone so badly and yet I’m not interested in dating at all? I mean what’s wrong with me?” Hugo lamented.

Ginger didn’t answer she just scuttled around in her terrarium, no doubt agitated at Betelgeuse’s presence.  

~~***~~

Jack Beetleman went back to work on Lydia Deetz’s pipes reluctantly, he banged against them with his wrench and made an awful racket but didn’t actually fix anything for another twenty minutes. Before he left Mr. Beetleman begged leave to use the upstairs hallway bathroom and actually loosened a few screws in the pipes under that sink. The pipes would hold for a few weeks and then when the burst with any luck Lydia Deetz would call him to come repair them. 

He charged her two hundred dollars for a three hour job, of which he had only really worked for about fifty minutes and told her she was getting a deal for being a first time customer. After Lydia grudgingly handed over the cash, as requested, he went out the door with a lecherous wink and an “I hope to hear from you again soon Miss Deetz” on his lips.

Lydia hoped she would never have to see the tradesman ever again.


	5. London, England October 31st 1368

A figure draped completely in black made its way through the dark and fog shrouding the area. It paused when it reached a fresh mound of dirt. From within the long dark mantle it withdrew six black candles and a short bone handled knife. Each of the six candles was placed strategically around the mound, one at each end, and two on each side. The figure moved from one candle to the next lighting them with an unseen source of fire. 

“Now I call a soul that’s weary, Bidden come from someplace dreary, Unto thee I turn loose, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!” Cassandra recited the incantation she had forged. 

Cassandra sliced her knife across her left palm and let the blood drip over the grave dirt. A flash of lightning cracked across the sky and upon striking the grave split it open. 

~~***~~

Betelgeuse has no concept of time, he is still sitting in the parlour room and he knows not if he’s been there for days or merely hours. One thing is for sure, he knows now why those he sits with appeared familiar to him, they are the recently deceased, ones he has buried. He holds a leaflet in his hands, he was never taught to read in life but he can read what this page has on it. That doesn’t mean he understands it. It is simply a list of rules he thinks, and he hates rules.

“Ye shall not be seen by the living” that sort of stuff. It said nothing about Heaven or Hell. Nothing about how he can find Elizabeth.  

The young couple he spoke with before were called through the doorway and he hasn’t seen them since. He knows not what waits on the other side because anyone who has gone through hasn’t come back that way.

Betelgeuse suddenly has a funny feeling in his gut, a strange pulling sensation and there is a faint sound as if someone is calling his name. For a moment he thinks of Elizabeth but then he gets a shock as if he’d been struck by lightning. The electricity jolts through him and it feels like dying all over again, it’s enough to make him shut his eyes against the pain and clutch his stomach. He is dead, he thinks; _I’m_ not _supposed to feel pain_. 

When he opened his eyes again he has a moment of panic, he is buried under a pile of dirt but he can see a sliver of moonlight coming down from somewhere above him. Betelgeuse immediately began to claw his way out.

Cassandra watched with a satisfied horror as her creature rose from the earth. She had brought a soul back to life with her magick, and not just any soul the one she most wanted punished. She watched as Betelgeuse’s bloody nails appeared followed by his long pale arms, and at last he managed to grip the ground and pull himself free.

Betelgeuse shivered as the cold night air hit his naked torso. It was out of habit not necessity; he didn’t actually feel the cold. He is handed his ermine lined cloak by the figure in front of him and he gratefully slips it on covering his naked frame. 

“I cannot believe it worked,” Cassandra gloats with glee as she admires her handy work.

Betelgeuse sneers, he had been free of her, of this life and she had brought him back to what? 

“Do not look so grim, I told thee I would not let thou rest. Did you see my dearest sister? What awaits on the other side?” Cassandra asked.

Betelgeuse clenches his fist and his jaw, unwilling to say anything. In his fist he finds the Pamphlet for the Recently Departed and wonders how that got there. It must be his.

“You are to be mine servant Betelgeuse. We will be bound together you and I” Casandra crinkled her nose in disgust at the notion. 

Something in her hand glinted in the moonlight and captures Betelgeuse’s attention. It is his ring, the ring he meant to give to Elizabeth. The ruby gems look like drops of blood.

“That ring belongs to Elizabeth!” Betelgeuse accuses, having found his voice at last.  

“The dead cannot be free to roam the earth without being bound to a living soul” Cassandra explained calmly, even as the reanimated corpse began to stagger towards her.

Betelgeuse halts, taken aback, “bound to a living soul” he didn’t like the sound of that. In fact to him it sounded a lot like marriage. The flames on the candles around his grave dim significantly; shrouding the two figures in near complete darkness.    

“Give me one good reason not to just kill you now” Betelgeuse said, snapping his neck to the side. 

He reached one long clawed finger hand towards Cassandra and she pales at the sight. He had only been dead for three days but already death had begun its grisly work. His once thin frame was bloated, his nails appeared elongated, and his eyes even larger and rounder than before.

“Come no farther” Cassandra commanded, throwing her left hand out, palm up.

Betelgeuse sneered at the bloody gash and found he could not move any closer to her though he tried.  

“What magick is this _Witch_?” Betelgeuse hissed.

Cassandra looks at her own palm with a mixture of fascination and horror. 

“I summoned your soul back to life and so it is mine to command” she explained, not really knowing or understanding what that meant.

“You will do my bidding gravedigger until I’ve lost use for you. My blood and my call have brought you back to life and so our lives are now bound to one another. Kneel” Cassandra demands.

Betelgeuse has no choice, her magick courses through his veins now, willing him to her desires. He sinks to his knees in the turned dirt of his grave and Cassandra comes to him and kneels before him. She roughly grabs his left hand prying loose the crumpled parchment.

“What is this?” she asks, and though she stares intently at the script the words do not reveal themselves to her. 

“That’s mine!” Betelgeuse snarls grabbing out with his other hand, stuffing the paper into some inner pocket in his cloak.  

Cassandra pulls his left hand towards her and cuts a matching gash across his palm. His blood does not burst forth as hers did, it oozes out slowly.

Betelgeuse cries out in shock even though he didn’t feel the cut, doesn’t feel any pain at all.

Cassandra withdraws a torn piece of black cloth from her cloak. 

“This is a scrap from the dress we buried Elizabeth in” she explained as she tied their two bleeding palms together.

“If you want to stay on the mortal plane you must make a vow to me Betelgeuse.”

Betelgeuse sneers again. He’s only ever had one love, had only ever desired to be married to Elizabeth. He closed his eyes and imagined the raven black hair, the warm dark brown eyes. Cassandra’s hair is the colour of wheat when the summer noon sun shines on it and her eyes are a green that makes him uncomfortable. How can two sisters be so different? 

If he ever wanted to see Elizabeth again Betelgeuse knows he has to obey Cassandra. She is his lifeline in a very real way. He repeats the words she gives him to say with a heavy heart. Her magick sings in his veins, replacing blood as his life force. They consummate their union on the cold hard ground of the earth next to his open grave. He does not enjoy it. 

Afterwards he just laid there, hand over his un-beating heart. _Elizabeth._ He makes a vow to himself. Cassandra will pay for what she has done. His already dead heart hardens in his chest, she will pay dearly.

Cassandra uses her magic to keep herself young and beautiful looking, and has an unnaturally long life. They travel across Europe together turning ticks and selling fake potions, this is his life -or rather _afterlife_ \- for the next two hundred years. A slave just as she had promised.

Betelgeuse gets his revenge during the witch hunts of Germany in 1576. He reports Cassandra to the authorities and though she calls and calls for him he does not come. When she is dead he finds her body and cuts free the ring that bound him to her, finger and all. He laughs with a manic glee as the darkness swallows him. He's free, he is free.


End file.
